After yesterday’s breeze, I found this the hardest FT for many weeks, not helped by the fact that musicals are my least favourite form of entertainment. At least they were all well-known ones. Having said that, it was an enjoyable challenge with some good clues and not an anagram anywhere to be seen!
It is typical that this, for me, harder than usual crossword should appear on the day of my first ‘live’ (same day) blog, with the situation being aggravated by having to complete yesterday’s offering immediately beforehand due to its belated posting on the FT website.
Across
1 OLIVER O (round) LIVER (organ) - musical
5 DILATIVE I L (left) in DATIVE (case)
9 CANDIDLY CAN (abbreviation of Canadian) D (died) IDLY (in vain) - it took me a long time to work out the wordplay in this one
10 GREASE dd - musical
11 PAVLOV PAV[e] (lay down flags) LOV[e] (affection), the removal of the ‘Es’ being indicated by the homophone ‘ease off’ - Pavlov was a Russian scientist who investigated the reaction of dogs to various stimuli
12 OKLAHOMA HO (house) in LAMA (priest) after OK (authority or go ahead) - musical
14 CALAMITY JANE A LAM (strike or hit) in CITY (town) JANE (the originator of a series of books about warships) - musical
18 SOUTH PACIFIC OUT (striking or on strike) in SH (quiet) PACIFIC (peaceful) - musical
22 SHOW BOAT W (with) BOA (snake) in SHOT (try as in give it a try) - musical
25 ABSURD ABS (sailors) URD[u]
26 JURIST RI (Regina et Imperatrix) in JUST - a jurist is a person versed in the science of law. My thanks to Duggie for giving me the correct interpretation of ‘RI’
27 PRIORITY RIO (Spanish for river) R (river) in PITY (shame)
28 HEDGEROW HEDGE (cover outlay as in hedge fund) ROW (quarrel) - I like the addition of ‘living’ to ‘barrier’
29 SETTER dd CINEPHILE and a breed of dog - though how we are expected to know which breed of dog he owns is beyond me! :-)
Down
2 LEAP AT LEA (field) PAT (a cow’s droppings, evidence that it has been in the field)
3 VIDELICET DELIC[acy] in VIET (SE Asian) - videlicet means namely of specifically
4 REDEVELOP RED (colour) EVE (day before) LOP (cut)
5 DAY ROOM AYR (Scots town) in DOOM (fate)
6 LEGAL LEG (member) AL[l]
7 TEETH hidden word in subordinaTE ETHical considerations - teeth equates to ‘ effective powers’
8 VESTMENT ’outlay’ is investment which is this ‘apparel’ following ‘in’
13 AMY [big]AMY - ‘having two mates’ is bigamy, ‘reduced in size’ means remove big
15 TIFFANIES - tiffany is a silk-like gauze and it is also a breed of cat (alternative name ‘chantilly’). Then we have the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s with ’say?’ indicating both the location and the homophone. I would prefer the clue to have been ‘fine fabrics’ rather than ‘fine fabric’ to indicate the plural nature of the answer
16 JACK SPRAT JACK (a fish) SPRAT (another fish) - from the rhyme “Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean …..”
17 COW HOUSE CO (company) WHO (that) USE (avail themselves)
19 HOB dd - a hob is a fairy or goblin and also a surface beside a fireplace on which things may be placed to keep warm
20 CATS-PAW CATS (musical) PAW (hand) - a person who is used by another (from the fable of the monkey who used the paws of a cat to draw chestnuts out of the fire)
21 WRITHE WRIT (a summons) HE (man)
23 WRING R (river) in WING (side) - Thanks Rishi for putting me right on this one
24 OTTER [h]OTTER - I wouldn’t normally describe an otter as a ‘beast’ but Chambers does include ‘a four-footed animal’ in its list of definitions for beast
